Well, yes, of course, truth is the best policy (and it doesn't require quite as good a memory). When caught lying for some selfish or otherwise unethical reason, trust is lost. I have no problem with that, and did not say or imply that people are never truthful. All I said is that truth is not a fundamental principle of my ethical system.
When it comes to lying by advocates of religions and ideologies, it is rampant. These systems are at foundation irrational, so to hold them the advocates have to lie, both to themselves, to deal with cognitive dissonance, and hence to others to be consistent and not make the dissonance worse.
Take a look at Christianity. The idea is that Jesus died on the cross "for our sins." How did that work? How does his death have anything to do with our sins? It is a magical death sacrifice to take away a curse. Put that way, its absurdity and primitive nature should be obvious, but people refuse to see it with real rationality. They are indoctrinated, probably as children, and hence "believe" rather than hold it as an opinion. We have instincts of group cohesion that can be linked with this tenacity of belief in spite of good sense.
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